From research I've learned that placing a high value on blending in is a cultural thing. There's the resulting good, like the focus on harmony which promotes good relationships (and is a major contributor to the low crime rate), and there's the bad, like spurning those who look/speak different (I've heard stories from a few who went to visit seeing signs that gaijin aren't allowed in certain establishments, etc).

That, and things like being an enthusiastic and early customer of British industrial/steam powered equipment in what we would broadly call the Victorian era. The early Japanese pre-dreadnought and dreadnought class battleships, for instance, were a clear descendent of British (or competing French) designs. Railway stuff as well. Lots of things that weren't British origin were American.